The decline and revival of the inner city
Launch library · evergreen read
For a stretch of the twentieth century, the inner suburbs fell out of favour, considered crowded and old fashioned compared with the newer, more spacious estates spreading further out, and property values in some pockets dropped accordingly. Families with the means to do so increasingly chose newer suburbs instead, drawn by more space and a sense of modern convenience.
That period of neglect had an unintended benefit, leaving much of the older housing stock intact simply because there was little appetite or money to redevelop it, a pause that inadvertently preserved streetscapes now considered highly desirable. Landlords during this period often deferred maintenance entirely, unable to justify the expense against such modest returns.
By the later decades of the century, tastes shifted back toward the inner city, and those same modest, once overlooked streets became some of the most sought after in the entire metropolitan area, valued precisely for what had once been dismissed. Buyers now routinely pay a considerable premium for exactly the features that once made these same streets seem undesirable.